“She wasn’t old enough to understand that you just didn’t care enough about us to stick around,” Mike said bitterly. “When that telegram came, she cried for days because her perfect big brother was gone. I didn’t cry, though. I’d sort’ve been expecting it. You’d been gone for five years by then.” Mike's voice developed a bitter edge, “It’s nice to see you two worked it out after all. You’ve had a pretty cozy life here all these years. Until now anyway.”
“That’s not really the whole picture, though. There’s a lot more you don’t know,” Dad said defensively. “But I don’t have to explain my whole life to you. Lydia knows everything and understands why I left. That’s really all that matters to me.”
“I do understand,” Mom said, both to Mike and to Dad. She was clearly trying to calm down some family issues which had gone unresolved for a very long time. “Goodness knows I didn’t understand at the time. I was so mad at you for leaving me back then. Not this time, right?” she smiled gently.
“I’m sorry to have opened all this up right now,” Mike said, following Mom’s lead “Because we should really be thinking about Milton, shouldn’t we?”
“Absolutely,” Mom said, giving Mike an encouraging nod.
“What about Jamie and Roger?” I asked. “Actually, what about all of us now that the Hunter knows we’re onto him? He’s going to find out who we are. That shouldn’t be too hard for him. And, how are we going to keep Roger safe?”
“Phil’s right,” my mom replied. “It doesn’t matter how emotionally fragile he may be, the boy needs our help. We can't just leave him out there on his own.”
“Tomorrow, we’ll talk to him again and let him decide if he wants to help us find Milton or not,” Dad said. “We’ve told him what happened. Now, we’ll ask him how much he can help. If he backs out, we make sure he’s going to be safe and then we let him go.”
“Yes, Honey, you’re right,” Mom replied. “Let him decide. I have to say, I’m pretty worried about that boy. We need to help him any way we can. If I’d known what became of Katrina and her husband, I would’ve helped him long ago. We’ve been too much on our own here, George,” she shook her head regretfully. “We need to use our talents to help these kids. They need us. Now.”
“Lydia,” he responded defensively, “I just wanted to protect what we’ve got here, for as long as I could.”
“I know! I know! I certainly don’t blame you for loving us as much as you do,” she assured him.
“It’s just that ever since seeing Philip’s—uh, outcome—I’ve wanted to protect him. And I wanted to protect you from the pain that my leaving you last time caused.” He paused for a second. He looked so sad and it surprised me. “Maybe I’ve gone about this the wrong way,” he added. “Maybe I’ve let fear take over too much.”
“Let’s kick out the fear and replace it with this,” Mom said, gesturing to all of us in the car, “If we can. I’ve forgotten how hopeful kids can be. Oh, George, could we?” Lydia cried, leaning her head on his shoulder then looking up so they could kiss. George nodded. He looked relieved.
“Okay,” Mike said. “There’s probably one more thing you all should know. In addition to killing Phil and me in our last lives, Milton and I were pretty sure the Hunter is the same one who killed Roger’s parents. We hadn’t told Roger or anyone else yet...” he trailed off.
◆◆◆
The next morning at school seemed oddly normal. Mike and I checked on Roger to make sure he was there and he was still cool about coming to the show that night. At lunch, the usual group gathered minus one member. Then things got a little weird for us. By noon, it seemed like everyone at school had found out Milton was missing and they all just happened to pass by our lunch table to say, “Hi.” They would then stop to talk to us, as if they were our friends. Mind you, these were people who’d never talked to us before, and then they’d try to pump us for information, try to find out what we knew about the situation. “Did he run away?” “Is he hiding out?” “Is he dead?” they’d ask, wide-eyed, really just a bunch of teenage vampires sucking up someone else's tragedy. I had a hard time staying polite, so I tried to keep my mouth full and let Mike answer their questions. Mostly, he’d reply, “Yeah, uh, I don’t really know anything except that he’s gone,” which wasn’t really a lie.
Things were also a little weird at lunch with Jamie. We were finally able to fill her in on what had happened the night before at Roger’s house without being interrupted by kids we barely knew with their fake concern. She sat there, deep in thought about what we’d told her, running probabilities and outcomes in her head. She was so distracted by her thoughts that when somebody did walk up to our table, she jumped like someone had popped a balloon by her head.
“Stay cool, Jamie,” I tried to reassure her after the intruder had left. “Nothing is going to happen to us here at school. We’re safe.”
“Okay,” she explained to us, “I am scared for all of us, and what happened last night seems terrifying. I’m so glad you are all here today, but I’m also really worried about Milton.” She paused and it looked like she was going to cry, but she took a breath and got herself under control. Then she said softly, “Did you know that for every hour he’s not found, his chances of ever being found alive go down? It’s true. Like seventy-five percent of all kidnapping deaths happen in the first three days. Every minute we sit around here pretending it’s just another school day, his chances of being killed go up! So, no, I’m not okay, guys. In fact, I’m about to lose it at any moment.”
Roger took Jamie’s hands in his and said, “I’m scared too, Jamie, but we have to keep it together enough to stay safe and aware of what’s going on around us. We all need to try to use our gifts to keep each other out of the hands of this guy, this Hunter, and to find Milton.” He looked around at the group as if for approval and then at Jamie, “Look, we’re all meeting at Philip’s house after the show tonight. Why don’t you come over? We’ll spend the night so there’s safety in numbers and we’ll figure out a game plan.”
“Okay, that sounds good,” she replied and seemed to be a little less freaked out. “I can’t just sit around and wait to be kidnapped or murdered.”
By the time school was out I was pretty worked up—definitely ready to get out of there—so I changed into my running shoes and ran home, which helped calm me down some. After a shower and dinner with my parents a new and different sensation spun through my head and turned my stomach. I was sitting at the dinner table watching my mom wash dishes at the sink and then, suddenly—
I’m sitting under the dinner table watching my mom wash dishes at the sink. She’s definitely Lydia, but younger and wearing a much shorter skirt. I’m sitting cross-legged, partially hidden by the table cloth, and I’m playing jacks. A younger George walks into the room, Mom turns from the sink, and they begin talking. I stop bouncing the little rubber ball so I can listen. “I left you in our last time together because I couldn’t live with you and lose you,” the younger George says. “I can’t leave you again. I love you both too much. I won’t lose either one of you again because of some tragedy from a hundred years ago.”
“And what about the other one?” younger Lydia asks.
“If he shows up, when he shows up, I’ll love him just as much as I did before and just as much as I love Philip.”
She hugs him and puts her head on his chest. “Times have changed," she says under his chin. “Maybe they’ll be happier this time.”
Then, just as quickly as the scene had appeared in my head, the spell was broken. As I’d been watching the little drama play out, my elbow had slipped off the table edge and I was jerked back to the present. Then I realized what I’d just witnessed. It was a memory from twelve years ago but I’d seen it just as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. It was plain that my dad had some problems he was working through back then and it seemed to me that shutting me out was one of the ways he’d tried to solve them. All this information pouring into me was going t
o take some time to process—time I didn’t have right then—so I shook off the nausea I was feeling, packed a snack for the evening’s show, and headed back to school for that night’s performance.
After the house opened, sneaking a peek through the curtain from backstage (which you’re really not supposed to do), I saw Roger sitting with my parents and talking. No one was crying or screaming, so I took that as a good sign.
The show went much better for me than it had the previous night, when I’d forgotten all my lines and I even got a little teary at the final curtain call. Being in the show had been a great experience even though my life had fallen apart in the middle of it. When Mom and Dad and Roger came backstage afterwards, I was once again struck by a sense of déjà vu. This time I wasn’t reliving some mysterious, past-life experience; instead, I was remembering my parents coming backstage two nights earlier. So much had changed since that night when my life began to turn upside down.
Dad saw me first and, smiling a big open grin, said, “Phil, you were just great tonight! I’m so proud of you!” Wrapping me in a firm hug, he gave me a quick squeeze before releasing me. This was new territory for us and, to be honest, I felt like I could get used to it.
“Oh, Honey,” Mom said to me, “You were fine, dear, but, you know, it wasn’t really like that. As I recall,” she went on, “It didn’t seem so horrible at the time. Afterward, though, people just wanted to forget that any of that unpleasantness had ever happened,” she trailed off, lost in old memories. Apparently my mom had been involved in the Salem Witch Trials somehow? Was she comfortable sharing information from her previous lives with me now? I had many questions about the continually changing relationship I seemed to have with my folks.
“Anyway,” my mom added, “Roger has agreed to come home with us tonight. He’s already called home and let them know where he’ll be. You have to stay late tonight, I suppose?”
“Yes, Mom, we talked about this already, remember? Mike and I and the rest of the cast have to stay for strike—to put everything away and clean up the stage. You guys go ahead and go home and we’ll be there later.”
Watching the three of them thread their way through the cast, crew, and visitors on their way out to the car, I was thinking of my dad and that genuine show of affection. I smiled as I watched them disappear into the crowd, then I went to find Mike to tell him Roger would be staying at my house that night, too. I had finally found him when I got this weird, itchy, tingling feeling like something bad was going to happen. I looked around and everything seemed fine, but the feeling was strong so I just stood there in the crowd, confused and unsure what to do. I tried to shake it off and started toward Mike again when suddenly a girl’s scream came ringing from out in the hall. Everyone rushed out there, but Mike and I were on the other side of the stage, away from the hall, so we were late getting there. After elbowing our way frantically through the crowd, we saw Roger sitting on the floor and holding his head.
“Roger!” Mike said kneeling beside him, “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, holding his head and looking baffled. “I was walking with Phil’s parents and all of a sudden something hit me on the back of the head. Next thing I know, I woke up on the floor.”
Mike stood up and scanned the crowd. He narrowed his focus to a girl standing nearby who I recognized as one of my freshman classmates and asked, “You’re the one who screamed, aren’t you?” She half-raised her finger as if to confirm her identity. She looked a little shaky as she nodded, “Yes.”
“Can you tell me what you saw?” Mike asked her softly.
“When I came around the corner from the theater,” she answered, her eyes large and startled, “I saw him on the floor,” she said pointing at Roger, “And there were two men arguing—or more like fighting, I guess. Then one of the men pulled out a gun. That’s when I screamed.” She wrapped her arms around herself and barely managed to say, “Then the man with the gun turned to look at me.” She whispered, “I thought I was gonna die.” We waited for her to calm down and continue. Finally, she cleared her throat and said a little louder, “They all turned to leave. The man and woman were in front and the man with the gun was behind them. Did I mention there was also a woman?” she asked. “Well, there was a woman. Anyway, they left just when everyone came running out here.”
“Thank you so much,” Mike said to her gently. “One more question,” he added. “How old was the man with the gun?”
The girl got a haunted, terrified look on her face. “Old, as old as time. And evil. The look he gave me when I screamed made me go cold. He wanted to kill me.” She began to cry, and turned to face the wall, she was clearly finished answering Mike’s questions.
At that point, Roger stood up; he was still rubbing his head. He and Mike and I stood together in the hall. I looked at the two of them and tried to figure out what had happened and what to do next. “It seems like the Hunter has taken my parents,” I said urgently. “We have to get them back! We have to get them all back.” I looked down at the floor, then back up at Roger and Mike. I went on, “I know I can’t do this alone. I’m going to need your help. It’s just the three of us against him and we have to win. Milton and my parents are depending on us.”
CHAPTER NINE
It is said that the Knowers have always been.
Among the Knowers, there are many legends and many facts, often indistinguishable from one another. It is a fact that Knowers who spend too much time looking into the future lose their sense of the present and never return. It is a legend that John Wilkes Boothe was one such Knower who had lost his senses, who believed Abraham Lincoln was destined to create some kind of catastrophe, and therefore assassinated him.
Southampton Free Press 1975 (Excerpt)
Jamie arrived at the same time the police did. “Am I too late?” she asked urgently as she approached. “I received some Knowledge at home and knew I needed to come here. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what it was at first, so I was doubting myself and trying to puzzle it out when I realized I needed to move. Then, I ended up here.”
“Well,” Mike asked, “What did you see? What was the Knowledge?”
“I saw a man and a woman getting into an old car. There was a gun pointed at them and they were scared. That’s all. By the time I figured out it hadn’t happened yet, I’d spent too much time thinking, and the information lost whatever value it had.” She looked at me and saw my distress and said, “Oh, no! Those people I saw were your parents, weren’t they?” she asked me.
“Yeah,” I answered. “It seems pretty clear that the Hunter took them.”
◆◆◆
The house was quiet when the four of us finally got there that night. It felt a little unreal to walk into that dark house knowing that my parents weren’t there and would not be coming home at all if I didn’t do something to bring them back. Standing in the entryway in the dark, just thinking, I let Mike and Roger fumble around and look for light switches. Jamie stayed near me. “How do you tell the future?” I asked her as lights came on one by one. “So far, I’ve seen glimpses of the past but I’ve never seen anything that hasn’t already happened. If we could somehow see where they are being kept, we could do something. I don’t know. Maybe we could sneak in or we could somehow overpower the Hunter... At the very least, we could get the police there. Is anything like that possible?”
“Well sorta,” Mike said hesitantly. “I mean, yes, it’s possible that we could get some Knowledge of where they are being held, yes.” He paused, took a deep breath, and then went on, “Here’s the thing with predicting the future, though: generally, the older you are, the better you get at it. It’s sort of an ‘adults only’ kind of thing. My mom was getting really good at it before she lost herself to it. Living too much in the future can really mess with your head, especially when you don’t know what you’re doing,” he concluded.
“Okay,” I replied, “but how does it work? We all need to try.”
“I can do it,
” said Roger, who was standing at the window and peering out into the dark. I don’t know if he meant for us to hear him but I did.
“You can?” I responded quickly. “Mike! Did you hear what Roger said? He said he can do it! That’s fantastic!” Then, turning back to Roger, I asked him, “Can you see where they are? Or, maybe, where they’re going to be?”
“No,” he said loudly, still facing the window. “It never works like that.” Then he continued more quietly, “It just happens. Sometimes when I look at a person, or a thing, or even a place, it happens. I start to feel myself falling. No, it’s not falling, it’s more of a rushing feeling but, of course, I’m not actually moving.” He paused and shook his head like he was trying to bring himself back from the memory. “I can’t explain it very well. Usually, after the rushing feeling, I see one solid future for whatever it is I'm looking at. Sometimes, I see several futures at the same time. It’s like two or three movies playing on the same screen at the same time.” Seeing just one past had been difficult enough, I couldn’t imagine seeing multiple futures. He went on, “I think that happens when the future isn’t set or when I don’t have enough information to see it clearly. Whatever the reason, it can make me sick. I get a kind of motion sickness.”
“That sounds intense!” I blurted out. Roger looked at me and shook his head, as if he was disappointed in how much I didn’t understand. “Do you think you can find my parents?” I asked him anxiously. “What do you need? You spent a lot of time with them this evening. Did you get anything from them then? We could go up to their bedroom and you could, what, like look around, or stare at something and see where we need to be?” I said like he was some kind of performing dog or something. Roger just turned and looked at me again, waiting for me to finish.
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